ENDURANCE & SPORTS NUTRITION PODCASTS

Low-fat vs Full-fat – Fat month

In August we are looking at various aspects of fat, on 32Gi Sports Nutrition. This week we focus on low-fat vs full-fat. Primarily looking at dairy; how are the two distinguished and what is the best nutritional option to look at?

Welcome to the 32Gi Sports Nutrition podcast I’m Mr. Active David Katz. We talked in the previous podcast about fat month. August is here and we’re looking at various aspects of fat over the next couple of weeks.

Mark Wolff is back and joining me and the very first thing that I thought could be quite interesting to look at. Because it involves dealing with sort of dairy everyday and products around that is high-fat verses low-fat. Mark welcome back onto the podcast.

MW: Thanks Dave.

DK: Just briefly, and I know I was like that when fat was sort of seen as sort of not being very healthy for us. There’s been a shift back to people now having more full-fat and not the low-fat. But what would be the chief difference between low fat and high fat products?

The chief difference between low-fat and full-fat

MW: So I think the main difference between low-fat and high-fat; if you looking at a high-fat diet you’ll notice that there’s a much higher intake of saturated and unsaturated fats.

So when we are talking saturated; we’re talking animal fats. There we talking obviously your, your meat fats, and your dairy. There’s no need in a high-fat diet to actually eat anything that’s lean. You know fat is very, very welcome.

I think for very many years people have misunderstood fats and thought that fats are unhealthy. But actually quite the opposite fats have got a lot of health benefits.

And specifically we’re seeing that reducing fat in products specifically the saturated fats, if you looking at dairy products, I think actually creates more health hazards than anything else as opposed to eating a more high-fat based diet and a more natural diet. There’s a lot of research around that.

So to explain to you the difference between let’s say low-fat or high-fat milk, is there is not much of a major difference. It obviously goes through a homogenised process. Which removes the, or lowers the fat content of the milk.

By reducing the particles not letting them come to the surface, what actually happens is that the content of the fat in the milk is lowered. Now there’s no major difference between say like a 1% and a 2% milk. But what will actually happen from a diet point of view which I think is a more beneficial point of view is by consuming a high-fat product.

If you looking at it from a weight-loss point of view you, will feel fuller for longer. So by taking in a full-fat product as opposed to a low-fat product it will allow you to feel fuller for longer. The chances of then actually eating excessively will be lowered quite a bit.

I think that is actually quite an important point. Because a lot of people look to a low-fat diet for weight-loss but it should be the other way round. They should be looking to a slightly higher-fat diet for weight-loss. Try to find the balance, not cutting out the fats and actually not being afraid of eating full-fat, a full-fat diet.

Pasteurisation of milk – what does it actually mean?

One of the biggest issue I have with the dairy industry is pasteurisation. For those that don’t understand pasteurisation; it’s basically taking the dairy to a certain heat, to look at killing off a certain bacteria. Generally you looking at around 160 degrees at the most, heated to.

The problem is that heating it to that kind of temperature has been known to destroy elements, sort of enzymes and vitamin and mineral properties of dairy and. Those are very, very valuable to anybody that consumes them.

In dairy there’s a large amount of certain enzymes which I think are very important. One of them in actual fact is CLA, which is conjugated linoleic acid. CLA is actually used by people for weight-loss. It’s very, very prevalent in dairy.

But pasteurisation takes away the conjugated linoleic acid. It actually takes away to me, an element of dairy that is very, very critical. Not just for weight loss but it’s also shown to reduce the risk of bowel cancer for example, by around 41% or so. So there’s been a lot of research around that.

The other thing is there are fat soluble vitamins, which gets better absorbed with fat. By lowering the fat content you won’t be able to do it. Now I’m talking things like vitamin D, vitamin E, potassium. So things like that for example that you will be able to get from a fuller-fat diet, which probably enhance the absorption, are now reduce significantly.

I always tell people that that’s so important because of the fact that these fat soluble vitamins or minerals, are much better absorbed with fat. The FDA for example has shown that vitamin C content of milk is reduced significantly through the pasteurisation process. But they just say oh, it doesn’t matter because people don’t really need dairy as a source of vitamin C.

I guess in a way maybe they don’t because you know people get sources of vitamin C from elsewhere. But again you just never know if it’s gonna be well absorbed through that, that food. I still think that if you take something raw and healthy and you go and eliminate that raw and health by processing it. I think that you, you actually putting it, putting yourself at a disadvantage.

I believe that if you are gonna eat dairy I think you should go for as raw as possible. I don’t believe in pasteurised dairy. In actual fact I avoid dairy because I just find that to me, it’s not a healthy source.

A lot of people think calcium comes from dairy well I’ve got news for you it’s very, very difficult to absorb calcium after it’s gone through a pasteurisation process. One research report has shown that more woman suffer from osteoporosis are much higher dairy eaters.

In actual fact it’s something that you should take note of. If you are reliant on milk for calcium, then I’m sorry to say you not gonna get it. Unless your milk is unprocessed in other words unpasteurised and completely raw.

All you need to know about yoghurt

DK: Mark, just wanna touch on one more thing as well. We’ve talked a lot about milk obviously milk goes into a lot of products. Another very big one is yoghurt. I know you, when you do have yoghurt, and I do it sort of double cream the Greek yoghurt stuff. But looking at the sort of sweeter stuff.

I mean this low fat yoghurt is it the same process, I mean it really is something that people especially your children, you don’t want them having these like really sweet yoghurts do you?

DK: Well look I think you’ve touched on one thing, full-fat has got a beautiful natural flavour to it. If you look at the ingredients in a full-fat yoghurt, they are actually quite simple. There’s not much on that in all honesty. Again a full-fat yoghurt will keep you feeling fuller for a lot longer.

There’s no reason to go and flavour a full-fat yoghurt that has got a nice rich creamy flavour to it. The minute you see a low-fat yoghurt you should start to worry.

Because first of all its low-fat so that already affects the taste and the texture. The other thing is what are the benefits of a low-fat yoghurt? I don’t think there are any benefits of a low fat yoghurt. In actual fact I think the additives that are put in there I think are more detrimental than the benefits of what you think you going to get out of it.

So what happens to the low-fat yoghurt is very simple. They tell you that there’s low fat in there but now you gotta look at the hidden sugars. Because when you go and you flavour something and you start to add something in; then obviously it definitely raises sometimes that carbohydrate content or that sugar content.

What are they actually putting there? It’s very important to be able to read labels. So corn starch for example is not classified as a sugar, because it’s a complex carbohydrate. But it does cause a rise in insulin, it’s a Maltodextrin, it can cause a rise in insulin.

Watch out for artificial additives in yoghurt

So that is a hidden sugar. Another thing is that sometimes they use flavours or any other ways of sweetening it. They using artificial flavours and artificial sweeteners. There’s absolutely no reason from a health perspective to be consuming that.

If you wanna flavour your yoghurt by all means take a full-fat yoghurt…take the flavour separately that you want. I mean add some peanut butter in there if you want, add a little bit of honey in there. Which, yes it’s a form of a sugar, but it’s at least raw and can be unprocessed. It’s far more natural than taking a processed version and sticking it in there, and in actual fact identify the different ingredients.

I still don’t understand the concept of eating a low-fat yoghurt. To me you eat a low-fat yoghurt you very hungry shortly afterwards, you know basically it’s not satisfying. So you land up eating more in the long run anyway. So go for full-fats and from a health perspective you are far better off without a doubt.

DK: Yes, some great advice there. Take a mango and purée yourself, strawberries, any berries and add that to the yoghurt. Far better for you, and actually as Mark touched on because of the fat content the more natural sort of flavours you getting from that, the fruit, far healthier for you as well.

Mark thanks very much for explaining that to us. I think that’s given people a lot to think about when it does come to their high-fat verses low-fat and specifically dairy. Stay with us here on 32Gi Sports Nutrition we’ve got a great another episode coming for you next week as we continue to look at fat.